Conscious Creators — Make A Life Through Your Art Without Selling Your Soul

“A lot of the awful things happening out there aren’t our fault, and we can be compassionate with ourselves around that, and still make decisions and learn from our mistakes.” –Mike Brown

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

Mike Brown is an entrepreneur, investor and guerrilla philosopher. Prior to founding, operating and exiting an 8-figure oil and gas company, Mike flew F/A-18 Super Hornets for the Navy and brings the fighter pilot spirit to entrepreneurship. When he isn’t dreaming up his next business or telling Navy stories, you can usually find him riding mountain bikes in the foothills of Golden, CO.

Julian Gluck grew up in LaGrange, Georgia and became a bomber pilot after graduating from the United States Air Force Academy. He was selected as the 2018 Air Force Times Airman of the Year for his community and combat service. Julian is active in international non-profit leadership, public speaking, and was recently honored on the 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 for Law & Policy. He is on Instagram at @JulianRGluck and LinkedIn.

On today’s episode of the Conscious Creators podcast, host Sachit Gupta speaks with his friends Mike Brown and Julian Gluck about the current COVID-19 global pandemic. Learn about strategies and lessons they learned in the Navy and Air Force to help you manage the current situation, from dealing with grief and trauma to taking action in moments of crisis. 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — find Mike on Facebook and Julian on Instagram!
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses

Episode Highlights: 

• Mike became involved with an organization called Haymakers for Hope that does amateur boxing fight nights to raise money to fight cancer.
• Julian was raised to value giving back to his community and be involved with philanthropy.
• As an investor, Mike believes that humans are essentially bad at evaluating risk because they tend to have an opinion and then look for data to back up their opinion, rather than looking at objective data sets and using that data to form their opinion.
• There are no downsides to enacting procedures to save lives when the alternative is the pandemic situation we’re now in due to lack of preparedness.
• Being able to social distance is a privilege.
• We can’t predict how we’re doing overall as a country because we don’t have enough data, but anecdotal evidence suggests we are at risk of ending up exactly where Italy was with hospitals having to choose who receives care.
• Decision-making models can be useful to guide you, but you should try to avoid being a slave to them.
• A useful framework is the OODA Loop: observe, orient, decide, and act.
• Once you come up with a plan, don’t become attached to the plan.
• Even after we get past this health crisis, there will be a continuing economic crisis.
• As a pilot, you follow an emergency protocol to maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, take proper action, and land as soon as conditions permit. This involves the mantra of Aviate, Navigate, and Communicate.
• Panicking will always make the situation worse, especially when you have the luxury of time to evaluate data, make an informed decision, and execute the plan.
• Meditation is a cornerstone of how Mike has constructed his life.
• It’s a misconception that meditation is about the absence of thought; instead, you can reliably predict that you will have thoughts while meditating, but you learn to observe and honor your thoughts and emotions without being trapped by them and reacting impulsively to them.
• In response to this crisis, people who are finding the silver lining of humanity experiencing a reset or finding the ability to engage in self-improvement right now, need to balance that optimism with compassion for those of us who are experiencing unthinkable loss and struggle.
• How do you balance feeling like you could have done more in a situation with having compassion for yourself?
• Self-compassion will be crucial for each of us to get through this crisis.
• We are all going to be dealing with grief as COVID-19 unfolds, and the military and our society are notoriously bad at addressing and handling grief. 
• People tend to engage in comparative trauma instead of allowing themselves to feel what they feel and honor the grief that they feel.
• Mike recommends practicing “radical gratitude,” which begins with being present.

3 Key Takeaways:

1. It is best to make decisions and take action based on data, not reactionary emotion.
2. Compassion for yourself and others during times of crisis is absolutely essential.
3. We as a society are bad at dealing with death and grief.

Tweetable Quotes:

“I loved being a part of the boxing classes and all of the unarmed combat courses. I think there’s so many lessons that you can apply from within the ring or in a wrestling match that you can take to the outside world.” –Julian Gluck

“It’s really bizarre to me that so many people seem to say, well, let me sit back and see what the government tells me to do here. We all have functioning intellect. We can look at the situation and go, wait a minute, what’s best for my family?” –Mike Brown

“Your net worth is not your self-worth.” –Mike Brown

“A lot of the awful things happening out there aren’t our fault, and we can be compassionate with ourselves around that, and still make decisions and learn from our mistakes.” –Mike Brown

“The important part is to focus on root causes that have instructional fixes for how we can ameliorate or prevent that in the future with a better solution.” –Julian Gluck

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — find Mike on Facebook and Julian on Instagram!
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Resources Mentioned:

• Conscious Creators Podcast website
• Mike Brown’s Website
• Mike Brown’s Facebook
• Julian Gluck’s Website
• Julian Gluck’s Instagram
• Forbes profile of Julian
• Haymakers for Hope
• OODA Loop
• Waking Up with Sam Harris meditation app
• The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
• The Operational Mindset Foundation

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

On today’s episode, Zach, founder of Live A Great Story, talks about how he got started with Live a Great Story and what’s next for the brand. Learn how Zach found the motivation to keep going through obstacles, what he’s doing to connect to his customers, and how to navigate the unknown.

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to SJ and Sachit or find Zach on Instagram. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Episode Highlights: 

• Zach shares the story of the moment Reese Witherspoon reposted Live A Great Story while he was at his grandfather’s funeral, inspiring him to keep going.
• Zach’s guiding principles are to think about whether his relatives who have passed away would be proud of what he’s doing and whether his future children and grandchildren would be proud of him.
• For Zach, the pursuit of being an entrepreneur is about the continuing journey of overcoming adversity.
• Sachit asks Zach when he wanted to quit the most, but Zach doesn’t remember a specific moment anymore. He just remembers the overall challenges.
• Right now, Zach is facing serious struggles with cash flow for the company but he knows he’s going to overcome the challenge and not quit.
• Zach believes in finding what fuels you to keep going. For him, it’s sweating a little bit each day from running or other exercise.
• Even Elon Musk’s company came close to running out of money.
• Sachit asks Zach about his evolution as a founder, and Zach says he sees himself partly as a creative and partly as an entrepreneur.
• Zach found the inspiration for his brand after backpacking through Europe for 7 months, and put up some spray painted messages around Austin without knowing what it would become.
• Zach describes how he balances envisioning what his company could be with allowing it to evolve organically, and says as you and your business change, it’s important to regularly check in with yourself about your values and impact.
• Recently, Zach realized that the values of Live a Great Story and their messaging have been disconnected for a while, so he’s reconnecting with his core audience and top customers to realign.
• Doing a deep dive into his customers allowed Zach to see that there are common feelings and experiences throughout his broad customer base, who at first glance seem entirely different from one another.
• Zach shares a story about learning to ask for help.
• He suggests that you come up with the ten people you would reach out to for help and advice.
• Zach talks about how and why he started the Live a Great Story conference. It was designed to encourage genuine connection with other people.
• His advice for conferences is to keep it simple, because it always requires far more planning than you expect.
• Seeing people with Live a Great Story tattoos is surreal to Zach. He feels like he’s just a small part of a wave.
• Zach has seen people post stickers or the brand in some crazy and impressive places, including a coffee shop in a small town in Nicaragua.
• To see people adapt his idea and make it their own is one of the most thrilling parts of this for Zach.
• The next challenge for Live a Great Story is to find ways to go deeper with the community and bring these people together to make an even bigger impact.
• To get in touch with Zach, send him a video DM on Instagram. Anyone who does this and says they heard it on this podcast with Sachit will get a free sticker!

3 Key Takeaways:

1. Entrepreneurship is more about the ongoing journey than reaching an endpoint.
2. Check in with yourself and your business to make sure your values align with your practices.
3. Building a community requires a lot of deep listening.

Tweetable Quotes:

“I think it’s about figuring out what you need to stay the course. What are those elements that fuel you?” – Zach

“Once you leave Austin, Texas you realize there are a bunch of people that don’t talk like you, don’t look like you, don’t believe what you believe, and having really cool conversations like that really inspired me.” – Zach

“We’re not aiming for a star when we’re launching. It’s more like a constellation or a cluster of stars. It’s pretty far away, so we don’t know what it’ll look like until we get there, but heading in that direction is taking us the right way.” – Zach

“In the deepest moments of I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know why I’m doing this, I’d hop on Instagram & there would be someone’s photo with this insane emotional response caption about how it had such an impact on them & that would boost me back up & keep me going.” – Zach

Resources Mentioned:

• https://liveagreatstory.com/
• Zach: Instagram, Twitter

Actions:

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to SJ and Sachit or find Zach on Instagram. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Here are the show notes from Javier, make sure to check out his podcast - Passion in Progress! 

One episode I'd recommend is with Zach Horvath of Live a Great Story, someone who's going to be on here soon too! 

Here are the show notes: 

03:34 - Catalyst to entrepreneur journey after corporate job

04:07 - A year of cold e-mailing people

04:27 - Getting his first marketing client

05:18 - Sachit gets in an accident out of country with no insurance, intro into negotiating with his medical expenses

08:29 - Working with Andrew Warner Founder of Mixergy

08:57 - work for free so people can see your skill set

10:04 - Working with Tim Ferriss

11:32 - Recommends reading "Recession Proof Graduate" because of the e-mail script

12:24 - Working with Tim ferriss

14:25 - working with Seth Godin

15:30 - Does working for free ever a bad idea?

17:10 - "It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and it takes 5 minutes to ruin it” - Warren Buffett

17:43 - How do you get better at selling if all you want to do is create

18:55 - Breaking down my streams of revenue

22:14 - Marketing to people with an audience do you want to have a few clients and charge them a lot or have a lot of clients and charge them less?

26:52 - Describing how a podcast syndication service works

28:01 - How do you get sponsorships for you podcast?

28:18 - How Sachit does sponsorships pricing for bigger podcasts like Mixergy

30:23 - How to price sponsorships for small podcast

33:57 - How to find a good sponsor for your specific show

35:46 - Book Recommendation "Social Proof the Psychology of Persuasion"

36:55 - How do you say no to people

37:55 - How to focus on the actual thing that is going to drive money

39:12 - How has the transition been from behind the scenes to being in front of the camera

40:38 - How have your first couple podcasts been?

41:35 - Interview process and not using bullet points on a guest

43:48 - How reading books and listening to other podcasts helps you in being a better podcaster

45:11 - Curiosity is important

46:06 - Emailing Mark Cuban

47:30 - Is Responding to every E-mail important?

48:09 - Focus on meeting the people who help famous people, that will lead you to working with the famous person

49:22 - Marketing boils down to really understanding who you are talking to

50:07 - Call people in your audience and actually talk to them

51:27 - Talking in person vs dm

53:06 - How cultivating relationships has paid off

53:28 - How to get into conferences that you can't afford

“I came to realize that as the influencer, you’re your own best marketer, you’re your own best advocate, you know your audience best, you know your content best, and people want to hear from you anyway.” – Tessa Arias

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

In today’s episode, Tessa Arias, founder of Handle the Heat, shares her experience going from a hobby-blogger to published author and social influencer. What I love about Tessa’s background is she’s grown a platform online mostly organically, reaching audience numbers that a lot of my friends who spend a ton on paid ads aren’t even able to reach. 

We also get super tactical into her experience working with sponsors and partnerships and how Tessa now acts as an advisor for companies wanting to work with influencers. We close with her experience going back into the world of publishing and why she’s self-publishing her next cookbook.

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to Tessa and Sachit or find Tessa on Instagram. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Episode Highlights: 

• Tessa began as a hobby blogger with no expectations of making money, until she was offered a book deal in 2012.
• Even though she was making money from her website, she didn’t feel like it was a real business, so she started attending Masterminds to learn more.
• Tessa found she needed the emotional support of having a team of like-minded people around her.
• Someone can have a six or seven-figure business, but hate their business and not feel fulfilled by their life.
• Find groups and resources where you’re actually getting advice and tools that you can implement.
• Surround yourself with people who understand and respect that you are the one who knows your business and yourself the best.
• Bringing someone else into your business forces you to operate at a higher level.
• You don’t need to post on major job sites; look within your own community first. For example, Tessa hired through Instagram at first.
• When hiring, Tessa suggests you ask them to tell a story about a time they overcame a challenge, and ask them their opinion about something trivial to see that they can make a commitment and not be a yes-person.
• Tessa realized she was approaching burnout when she stopped feeling excited about her work.
• Growing your business depends on being flexible and adapting to the changing online landscape.
• Tessa challenged herself to post something every quarter that is more controversial or more personal and that scares her.
• If you buy a course online, make sure you have an accountability buddy to do it.
• Her past experiences with sponsored posts were formulaic and based on how other food bloggers did it, but she learned from Sachit and others how to build larger partnerships and create relationships from sponsorships.
• Through her success with building partnership relationships, Tessa has become a case study and an advisor for how brands should work with influencers.
• Tessa learned to ask open-ended questions of her sponsors to understand how their organizations work so she learns what would work best for both of them.
• No one opens Instagram excited to see sponsored content, so you should prioritize sponsorships that work with content you already post organically and that you care about and whose products you use.
• Question your assumptions that something has to be done a certain way.
• Sell your own content to your audience and remind them of the work that goes into it.
• The most important fundamental skills you need to be a successful published author are marketing and sales.
• Tessa is writing a second cookbook but is self-publishing it.
• The hardest part is marketing the book for pre-sale while creating it in order to fund it at the same time.
• Don’t do something you don’t like just to see if it’ll be successful, because if it is successful, you’ll have to continue doing something you hate.
• If you’re bored with your content and the content others in your niche are putting out, do something surprising.
• Tessa’s favorite part of her job is the ability to do whatever she wants when she wants to and to structure her day how she feels comfortable.

3 Key Takeaways:

1. Give yourself the space to be creative and stay recharged and excited about your work.
2. It’s important to build relationships with sponsorships, partnerships, and PR representatives.
3. You can have a big impact on every person who takes the time to follow, subscribe, or comment.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “I think the biggest thing for me was realizing I couldn’t do it by myself and I didn’t want to do it by myself. Owning an online business can be really isolating, you’re not in a room full of people unless you choose to be.” –Tessa Arias
• “Following someone else’s definition of success means that you have no intention or vision for yourself.” –Tessa Arias
• “The things I complain to my friends about in private, sometimes, those conversations need to be made public, because you’re going to find your true fans and followers.” –Tessa Arias
• “Working with a sponsor gives you resources that you wouldn’t have otherwise.” –Tessa Arias
• “I came to realize that as the influencer, you’re your own best marketer, you’re your own best advocate, you know your audience best, you know your content best, and people want to hear from you anyway.” –Tessa Arias
• “When you feel like you’re at a plateau, do something surprising to yourself and for your audience.” –Tessa Arias

Resources Mentioned:

• Later: Post scheduler for Instagram
• Tailwind: Pinterest and Instagram scheduler
• Tessa’s Blog: Handletheheat.com 
• Find Tessa: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to Tessa and Sachit or find Tessa on Instagram. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

On today’s episode, we have Ron Klabunde, the Founder & CEO of Generosity Feeds.

It's hard to think of a worse experience than losing a job. Even if you're young, and the stakes aren't as high, it's still terrifying to feel like you've lost control of your life.

You can drive yourself crazy thinking about all the "what ifs". What if you can't find another job? And on top of all that, what if you came to the realization that it was your own arrogance that put you in that position in the first place? What would you do?

But his story doesn't start there. At one particularly low point, Ron found himself at rock bottom with nowhere to go. But instead of giving up, he used his experiences to become a force for change in the world.

But deciding to change doesn't mean all the problems disappear. Despite his drive and desire to do good, founding a non-profit wasn't easy. And Ron describes growing Generosity Feeds as an emotional roller coaster, and something that took everything he had to give.

In today's episode, Ron talks about that emotional journey, how he got through the darkest moments, and the one thing that lead him to start Generosity Feeds in the first place. 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — send an email directly to Ron and Sachit at [email protected] and [email protected] 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Episode Highlights: 

• Why you should hire employees better than yourself.
• How to help your team play to their strengths.
• How non-profit and for-profit companies can work together toward mutual benefit.
• Why generosity is the new gold standard.
• The hard, yet rewarding, effort it takes to do work that matters and have an impact. 

Tweetable Quotes:

"What I discovered is that my pain was able to help other people heal from their own stories and I could become far more real with people." @GenerosityFeeds 

Resources Mentioned:

• Generosity Feeds
• Replenish Foundation
• MOD Pizza
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Baby Bathwater Institute
• My Billion Dollar Mistake
• Salesforce
• Email Ron
• Ron on LinkedIn 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — send an email directly to Ron and Sachit at [email protected] and [email protected] 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

This episode turned out a little different than our usual format! I’ve spoken with Sachit Gupta countless times. So in this episode, I was keen to see what would happen if we dived down the rabbit hole with zero expectations. 

And the result was pure gold!   

Sachit is the deep-thinking, creative genius behind Platforms Media – a company that helps amplify podcasters, authors, and other creatives by creating win-win partnerships with brands. Through this platform, Sachit has worked on marketing campaigns with top podcasters including Tim Ferriss of the Tim Ferriss Show, Andrew Warner of Mixergy, and Seth Godin, as well as social media influencers and international sports stars. In addition to his work with top creatives, Sachit is also the host of the Conscious Creators Show – where he helps his listeners make a life through their art without selling their souls. 

Creativity runs through his blood and I was excited to learn more about his take on this crucial topic. But we didn’t stop there… As the deep-dive continued, Sachit and I explored a delicious mix of topics that stretched from fear, courage, curiosity, to how to live a fulfilling life. 

If you’re curious to be a fly-on-the-wall as two creatives discuss creativity, life, and more, this is your chance! Check it out now.

"Creation is something where you can take anger, rage or negative feelings and turn it into something positive without harming other people."

This is one of those episodes where our conversation will get you thinking and contemplating about your own creativity and life. So if you’re ready to be challenged and engage in deep thought with myself and today’s guest, dive in now. 

In this episode, you’ll discover: 

• Why society is driven by creation. 
• How to define creativity and where inspirational sparks come from.
• How to get clear on your best next steps and why the answers come when you take action.
• Why helping someone else gets you out of a funk and creates space for creativity.
• How to reach out to friends you haven’t contacted for a while – and why it’s important to do this.  
• Why we’re scared of being seen starting something small. 
• The danger of believing ‘borrowed’ stories.
• And more…

Be sure to watch out for the listener challenges too and let us know how they impact your life! 

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

In today’s episode, Dan Clark, CEO of Brain.fm talks about how a near-death experience led him to re-evaluate his life, how he found Brain.fm and his journey from contacting customer support to becoming CEO. We also talk about his early childhood experiences, being picked on and learning martial arts, and how that relates his ‘why’ behind Brain.fm. 

If you enjoy this episode, feel free to reach out to Sachit and Dan at [email protected] + [email protected]. 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to Dan and Sachit or find Dan on Instagram. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Episode Highlights: 

• Dan had a near-death experience that led him to reevaluate his life.
• He discovered Brain.fm and had a healthy skepticism about it.
• Dan didn’t finish college because he found that his body clock didn’t work with the schedule, and he had the same experience when he tried going into advertising.
• He found Brain.fm so incredibly valuable to him, so he contacted customer support persistently until he was put in touch with the Founder. They weren’t able to hire him for what he was charging, but he decided to work for them for free to prove his value.
• Dan believes he got that discipline and persistence from training in martial arts.
• Dan is always trying to optimize communication.
• Ask yourself why you want something and why you’re doing something so you can align all of your goals to that why.
• One of the biggest challenges we have in today’s society is plugging into deep focus and then disengaging from it on a set schedule. Some people aren’t made for that.
• Using Brain.fm has helped people with everything from general focus and productivity to PTSD, ADHD, and autism.
• The idea of music being capable of changing lives and mental states is not new.
• Brain.fm is different from the pop science theory of binaural beats, which does not have as much scientific backing as the audio research done for Brain.fm.
• Dan got grant funding to research alternative treatments for ADHD and therefore validate the science behind Brain.fm.
• Right now, Brain.fm is used for focus, relaxation, sleep, and meditation. Their next step is to improve what they already have before they expand what they do.
• They are working on integrating wearable technology to measure an individual’s baseline and change the music selection based on your needs.
• Developing workout music requires changing the fundamental ideas behind the music because unlike focus music, for which the goal is you ignoring the music, workout music requires focus on the music itself to distract you from your workout.
• Sachit asks Dan what their process is for developing new products. Dan says they have a resident neuroscientist on staff.
• You can use Brain.fm as part of the Pomodoro method.
• Dan struggled with focus as a kid, dealing with bullying and other distractions.
• For productivity, Dan emphasizes forming good habits rather than relying on tools.
• Every morning, Dan gets an iced coffee and writes.
• For Dan, work sprints are the most effective way to structure his day.
• Multitasking does not work or increase productivity, so Dan limits the number of times he context switches each day.
• Understand that everyone is different; people with the same goal will have different reasons for doing it.
• Dan thinks of his company like a ship—when he helps people, he expects them to help him back. Even if he’s the captain of the ship, he can’t run it alone.
• Common traits that Dan sees in entrepreneurs are perseverance and the ability to find meaning in things that happen.
• Dan had a severe stutter as a child and he sees the speech coaching he got in elementary school as one of the most valuable things he received in his education.
• Dan bought a bracelet in Laos that he hasn’t removed in 6 or 7 years because it reminds him why he’s doing the work he does; the extreme poverty he witnessed while traveling inspired him to take full advantage of every opportunity he gets with full gratitude and commitment.
• Dan approaches trying new things with a genuine love of a challenge.
• Everything Dan approaches, he challenges himself to accept both the worst case scenario and the best case scenario, within the bounds of what’s realistic. For example, before jumping out of an airplane, he accepted that the worst case scenario would be that he’d be uncomfortable for 2 minutes and not enjoy himself.

3 Key Takeaways:

1. A crucial part of goal setting is determining your why.
2. No productivity tool will help you focus without good habits to back it up.
3. Reframe trying new things as an exciting challenge to conquer.

Tweetable Quotes:

“Everyone has different goals, and different reasons why they’re doing an action. And when you first find the core belief of why someone wants to do something, that is a great way to start.” –Dan Clark

“Human beings are the only animal on this earth that I’m aware of that can learn and change their own behavior, and we have the conscious ability to be able to do that.” –Dan Clark

"As people, as our brains work, we don’t really multitask.” –Dan Clark

“We have certain belief structures about the world that we live in, about who we are as a person, that can limit us into being the true version of ourselves.” –Dan Clark

Resources Mentioned:

• Brain.fm
• Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up
• Email Dan: [email protected]

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to Dan and Sachit or find Dan on Instagram. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

SJ Murray — Storytelling, Screenwriting Kung-fu and the Difference Between Community Building and Networking 

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

On today’s episode, we have SJ Murray, an Emmy-nominated screenwriter, teacher, and storyteller. We discuss what it means for her to be a storytelling, how to unlock your innate creativity, different storytelling models, the importance of community-building, and what it means to take the ego out of creating. 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to SJ and Sachit or find SJ on Instagram. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Episode Highlights: 

• What does it mean to be a storyteller?
• For SJ, she wants to tell stories that are both challenging and leave the world better than it was. She believes in ethical storytelling.
• In terms of brain chemistry, there doesn’t appear to be any difference in how our brains react to a story whether we are the storyteller or the viewer.
• SJ has loved studying what makes stories work and then bringing it full circle to apply it to her own writing.
• What is “screenwriting kung-fu”?
• Learning structural rules can set your creativity free rather than constrain it.
• Some examples of storytelling structure are found in Aristotle’s three-act structure and Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey.
• Distinguish between helpful notes and helpful council from people with a strong track record and unfounded criticisms.
• We have been sold the myth that the messiness of humanity is the source of all our problems, but what if we operated from the assumption that we’re all imperfect and that’s normal?
• SJ believes everyone should reflect on what brings them joy and fulfillment.
• Loneliness can have negative effects on your health as severe as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
• SJ distinguishes between networking and community by emphasizing that networking is inherently transactional.
• Community is making a commitment to get to know people over time.
• If we rush to create, what we create won’t endure.
• Embrace creativity because it’s what you do, not for the external validation.
• Screenwriting has constraints in a way novels do not.
• How has SJ’s experience in sports and dance informed her creative process?
• Training means you go through the motions until inspiration strikes.
• All stories are predictable if you understand story structure, but they shouldn’t feel predictable. A great story will make you feel smart for predicting what happens or surprises you by deviating from it.
• Animation is special because it isn’t bound by the constraints of being human.
• Even worlds that aren’t our own require rules of engagement so the audience understands how it works.
• A core principle of SJ’s community-building is that she’s not at the center of it; the people who come are the value, not her.
• A leader does a lot of the invisible work for the sake of the work, not the recognition, like the conductor of an orchestra whose back is to the audience.
• The distinction between creativity and business is harmful and useless; creatives should hone their business acumen and business professionals should hone their creativity.
• SJ had an experience with a teacher when she was very young who mocked her art in front of her class, and it meant she didn’t write creatively again for 20 years.
• Encouragement at a young age and the countering of adverse experiences at a young age are crucial for developing creatively.
• If you hear that whisper urging you to create, it’s never too late to listen to it.
• SJ didn’t reconnect with creative writing until she was forced into a class in college.
• You don’t have to constantly prove yourself.

3 Key Takeaways:

1. Creativity is innate in all of us and it’s never too late to access it.
2. Learning the rules and structures of storytelling can be creatively freeing instead of limiting.
3. Childhood experiences are formative in how you perceive what you’re capable of doing. Encouragement is crucial for young people.

Tweetable Quotes:

"We have this relationship with creativity where we want it to just be innate. And creativity in its rawest form is innate. I mentioned that earlier, I think we all have it, we’re all predisposed to create.” –SJ Murray

“By studying some rules of structure, they can become amazing storytellers and set their creativity completely free.” –SJ Murray

“Happiness is not about a warm fuzzy feeling like we think about it today. Joy is a feeling, sadness is a feeling, but happiness is being attuned with your purpose.” –SJ Murray

“I like to operate from the assumption that everybody’s human and therefore everybody’s imperfect, and their lives are not supposed to be not messy.” –SJ Murray

“The greatest prizes we win in life are the ones we don’t try to win.” –SJ Murray

“Life got so much better for me the day I quit trying to prove myself.” –SJ Murray

Resources Mentioned:

• Aristotle’s Poetics
• The Hero’s Journey
• Basics of Story Design: Book, Course
• From Plato to Lancelot: A Preface to Chrétien de Troyes (Medieval Studies)
• SJ Murray: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to SJ and Sachit or find SJ on Instagram. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

On today’s episode, we are joined by Sahil Lavingia, Designer and CEO of Gumroad who’s also a painter and writer. We discuss creativity, design, and what he thinks makes people really happy. Learn what Sahil is creating now, how he structures his time in a way that allows him to pursue several large projects, his reflections on his failure to build a billion dollar company and why his success in business is not the only thing that defines his self-worth. 

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to Sahil and Sachit or find  Sahil on Instagram. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Episode Highlights: 

• What does it mean to be a creator?
• In Sahil’s eyes, a creator is someone who values the creative process and making stuff as an essential part of their identity.
• Almost everyone in his mind is a creator, it's just how strongly people identify with that as one of their core purposes in life.
• Sahil shares the creative projects he is working on now.
• He just started learning Blender for 3D rendering. He’s also painting and learning form language.
• He has spent a lot of time analyzing his own style.
• Sahil is a minimalist. He enjoys a simple interface that is text-heavy.
• He also enjoys technology and software that feels more real with shadows and tactile elements.
• He remembers thinking about fonts in the early days of his life.
• Sachit and Sahil reflect on the design of businesses, contrasting Panda Express and Chipotle.
• We use implicit signals to know where to go in buildings and how to navigate through them.
• Inevitably, even if you aren't a designer you engage in design.
• The more you design, the more instinct you develop around designing. You develop unconscious competence.
• With painting there's a lot of directly applicable, actionable lessons he can apply to design.
• He's still trying to figure out what it means to have a single focal point.
• There's an informational hierarchy in web design.
• The importance of clarity is important to him as a designer and as a CEO.
• Sahil describes how he sets up his week to address different problems.
• When Sahil moved to the Bay Area ten years ago, he wanted to be an integral part of the tech and startup community.
• They discuss Sahil's admiration for the way Bill Gates lived the American dream.
• He loved the idea of being in control of his life, time, and location.
• Sahil discusses his view on money and wealth.
• He feels more motivated by influence and fame than by money.
• When he was raising investor money for Gumroad, he felt validated.
• So many people think there's something on the other side of a door they can't open.  
• Sahil is not convinced that the things we do for money will make us happy.
• It's easy to get detached from the reason you started in the first place.
• Sahil is good at shipping fast. Even with painting, he started sharing early.
• They discuss sharing metrics in general and how competitors also approach sharing metrics.
• At one point, Sahil moved to Provo, Utah, because he wanted to take a science fiction course with Brandon Sanderson. There, he earned he wanted things that were different from everyone around him.
• Gumroad is just one of the many things that define him.
• They talk about billion-dollar businesses vs. lifestyle businesses.
• There's something around picking a community that you like and building a business for that community.
• They're building out a roadmap right now on the Gumroad side. Education is the core theme.
• On a personal level, he's trying to figure out what type of creator he wants to be.

3 Key Takeaways:

1.   Even if you aren’t a designer, you engage with design. Even if you don’t consider yourself a creator, you likely create.
2.   The things that will make people happy are truly accessible to everyone.
3.   Your self-definition can encompass more than your success in achieving a particular goal.

Tweetable Quotes:

"To be a creator... for me, is someone who values the creative process and making stuff as sort of an essential part of their identity." – Sahil Lavingia

“I really believe now that the most essential things that make people really happy are accessible to everybody.” – Sahil Lavingia

“Influence and fame are much more sort of what I need to feel good, for better or worse.” – Sahil Lavingia

“I'm a multi-faceted person and Gumroad is like one of the things that I do but it's not the thing that necessarily defines me.” – Sahil Lavingia

"Most businesses are that normal path right down the middle. They do care about their lifestyle but they also want to have an impact." – Sahil Lavingia

Resources Mentioned:

• Gumroad
• “Inventing on Principle” (talk)
• “We Are What We Build” (talk)
• Sahil’s post on Medium about the journey of Gumroad
• Walt Disney vision map
• Sahil Lavingia’s Website, Twitter, Newsletter

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to Sahil and Sachit or find  Sahil on Instagram. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Welcome to the Conscious Creators Show; where through intimate and insightful interviews with authors, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs and other podcasters, you'll learn tools and tactics to 10x your creativity and strategies to grow and monetize your audience.

On today’s episode, we learn from James Altucher, an entrepreneur, author, venture capitalist and podcaster, who pursues creativity every day. Hear how James has prioritized building skills through an exciting career that spans multiple careers, from investing to chess and from startups to standup. We also explore common themes he’s discovered in his pursuit of learning from 500+ top performers on his show.

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to James and Sachit or find James on Instagram or TikTok. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.

Episode Highlights: 

• James outlined his vital daily practice in a viral blog post. When he doesn’t do this practice consistently, his life feels off.
• He needs a daily practice to be at his best.
• Sometimes when you're an entrepreneur so many things can go wrong. It can be very difficult and stressful.
• There was a time when James felt blocked and on the precipice of depression. He realized he wasn't doing his daily practice and even just starting it again helped him.
• Are you taking care of yourself in tiny ways? Are you just attempting to do 1% more for your physical health, emotional health, creative health, and spiritual health?
• James describes an experience where someone was stealing from him and he decided to take extreme ownership.
• Are you improving your relationships and distancing yourself from toxic relationships?
• Are you eating well, sleeping well, and exercising?
• James likes to get good at the things he’s passionate about.
• By interviewing peak performers and reading about them he seeks to understand how to skip a line.
• Are there smart things you can do to achieve better performance faster?
• There’s a physical and emotional component to getting better at something.
• When you skip a line in any field, you're going to have people who don't like you.
• In order to achieve any kind of peak performance, you have to find your own unique voice in that area of life.
• If you just improve a little bit each day, your improvement gets compounded.
• James shares the story of how Richard Branson started Virgin Air.
• The ability to “ready, fire, aim” is a key characteristic of high achievers.
• Peak performers have a dedication to learning.
• In general, peak performers are very kind people that you want to be around.
• James shares an experience that demonstrates Ken Langone’s intensity.
• Many peak performers are very intense and they know exactly where to drill down to get the most information possible and as quickly as possible to understand the situation.
• Peak performers bring intensity and curiosity to everything.
• Brian Grazer produces movies because he's insanely curious. He schedules one curiosity conversation every week.
• Peak performers don’t accept no as an answer. Tyra Banks knew ANTM would succeed but was turned down again and again.
• James has confidence when he is excited about something.
• He's only able to persuade people when he's excited about something.
• In his late 40s, he decided he wanted to try standup comedy once. He tried it and loved it.
• Smoking crack bias = thinking the activities you have invested in have value no matter what.
• Always ask what you aren’t looking at.
• A lot of the skills people think they need to learn are not actual skills.
• Entrepreneurship is not a skill. It's an umbrella of skills.
• James found standup comedy to be a very complicated skill to acquire.
• They discuss the cumulative effects of becoming good at one skill and how that does and does not transfer to other areas.
• Standup comedy helped public speaking but public speaking did not help standup comedy.
• In the 90s, James created websites for big companies and started his first business. He quickly realized you need to be able to convince people about your vision. 
• Because he had a technological background, he knew every company needed a website.
• There's no wall between business and creativity.
• Art is very much a business endeavor.
• Building a platform is a business skill.
• His morning is devoted to writing and creativity. Writing has been the flagship of his creativity for thirty years.
• Software development helps James to understand or manage software development projects. He keeps track of the latest developments in software so that he's never behind the times. He programmed software to model the stock market.
• Having a software background helps you to understand what is the simplest, most rational solution to a situation.
• When you have too many factors, you're probably analyzing incorrectly.
• He professionally self-published Choose Yourself. 
• Figure out who the gatekeepers are and how to get around them.
• In every area of your life, you can choose yourself.
• He wasn't focused on money and instead did what his art wanted him to do.
• The best way you can prove yourself is by being the best you that you can be.
• He still feels insecure and has felt that way since he was a child.
• James shares his funny Madoff story that doesn’t work for standup.
• James tells us about his HBO web show.
• Interviewing is an ongoing thing that you learn. I think it's an art form.
• When interviewing, prepare really well so that the person is shocked by how much you know about them.  
• Sometimes a good podcast is really about the entertainment value. You only need a little bit of the podcast to be educational.
• No matter what, you have to be good at something.
• Deliver value. Be entertaining. Find the right platform.

3 Key Points:

1.   Decide to be 1% better each day in ways that serve your emotional, physical, creative, and spiritual health.  
2.   Learning from others allows you to “skip a line” and get better at gaining a skill more quickly.
3.   The cumulative effects of becoming good at one skill can often transfer to other skills.

Tweetable Quotes:

"I like to get good at things I'm passionate about." – James Altucher

“In order to achieve any kind of peak performance, you have to find your own unique voice in that area of life.” – James Altucher

“If your compass is pointing in a direction, that's the only direction you should go in.” – James Altucher

“There's no wall between business and creativity.” – James Altucher

"Figure out who the gatekeepers are and how you get around the gatekeepers." – James Altucher

Resources Mentioned:

• “How to Be the Luckiest Guy on the Planet in Four Easy Steps”
• Extreme Ownership (book)
• Ken Langone
• Brian Grazer
• Stillness Is the Key (book)
• Choose Yourself! (book)
• Joe Rogan podcast
• Andrew Warner podcast
• James Altucher’s TikTok, Podcast, Website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

Actions: 

1. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a review.
2. Thank our guest and let them know what you thought of today’s episode — click here to send a Tweet directly to James and Sachit or find James on Instagram or TikTok. 
3. Head on over to Creators.Show to get new episodes, exclusive guides like our guide on “How to Connect With Busy Influencers”, partner deals and additional bonuses.